HP Readies TouchPad Tablet for June Launch
When Hewlett Packard unveiled the new webOS-driven tablet called the TouchPad, the first reaction was, "When can we have it?" HP CEO Leo Apotheker recently gave the answer: it will be available this June.
Apotheker made the announcement at the HP Summit in San Francisco, which focuses mainly on businesses who use HP products.
"The TouchPad will come out in June and from that date onwards there will be wave after wave of technology coming out to support the webOS platform ," he said.
The webOS platform technology he mentions is partially referring to the new HP initiative to sell computers running webOS, which has previously sold exclusively on smartphones. Apotheker said a beta version of webOS for computers will be available by the end of the year. It won't be a full-fledged operating system; instead, the beta will simply run in a browser as a way to test it. He also said that webOS works seamlessly with Windows, so it won't cause problems to ship it on Windows PCs.
HP plans to sell 100 million webOS devices a year in the future, thanks to the proliferation of the platform across phones, printers, computers and tablets.
The TouchPad has no official price yet, but a source who accurately reported the June release date before it was officially announced also reports the TouchPad will sell for $699.
